Coffee Rolls

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Decadent coffee cinnamon rolls slathered in coffee cream cheese frosting are the perfect complement to your morning cup of coffee.

If you’re in the market for a not-so-average cinnamon roll… Ohh, my friend, you have come to the right place. And I am so glad you’re here!

I have long been an advocate for savory breakfasts: my make ahead breakfast casserole is one of the most frequented breakfasts in this house, we love to make quiches (either crustless, in a crust, or in a cauliflower crust), and of course, a couple straight up eggs is my favorite post workout meal.

Though I do often whip up a baked apple oatmeal to have for quick breakfasts, I typically fall into the camp of eggs and meat.

Except in the form of a cinnamon roll, and what cinnamon roll turned me this way most effectively was the sourdough cinnamon rolls I made this past summer.

Those were something, let me tell you.

And because it’s hard for me to just bring you a staple (though hello, simple chocolate cupcakes, yellow layer cake, white layer cake, vanilla bean cupcakes, and red velvet cupcakes, to name a few), classic cinnamon rolls were not on the menu for my blog this month.

Instead… Coffee rolls, otherwise known as coffee cinnamon rolls.

Because, guys… You are absolutely going to want these.

I will preface this by saying if you are not a coffee fan, you probably didn’t find yourself here in the first place, but these coffee rolls may not be for you.

While they are first and foremost a cinnamon roll, the coffee is the star of the show. They are full of strong, bitter coffee flavor, which is an incredible complement to the soft dough, spicy cinnamon, and creamy cream cheese frosting (which is also flavored with coffee).

So let’s talk about each of the components of these coffee cinnamon buns so you know what we’re working with here.

It’s simple, it’s easy, it makes just 6 coffee rolls, and it’s not too sweet.

To give the dough a solid coffee flavor to stand on, we’re using instant coffee granules or instant coffee grounds to give us the coffee flavor.

Typically, I give substitutes for instant coffee granules in case you don’t want to make an extra trip for them, but honestly, they’re pretty crucial to the filling and the frosting (we’ll get to them).

You’ll dissolve the instant coffee granules right into the warm milk that goes into the dough, which gives the soft, supple yeast dough a slightly bitter coffee tang. By itself, I worried it was a little too savory, but alas, I persisted with the other components.

The filling is sweetened with white and brown sugar, made spreadable with butter, and the sweetness is offset by just a touch of salt.

The bitterness of the cinnamon is a wonderful complement to the bitterness of the coffee, and when put up against the sweetness of the sugars, these two parts of the taste spectrum come together to create a really robust and flavorful coffee cinnamon roll filling.

I added, of course, some instant coffee granules to this cream cheese frosting as well to not only flavor the frosting, but to create that gorgeous aesthetic of speckled frosting.

Frankly, I was blown away by how good these coffee rolls were and how much I enjoyed the bitterness of the bold coffee flavor.

I had a total of 7 taste testers including myself (and a teenager and an older toddler!), and the consensus was that they were amazingly good.

Not too sweet, certainly not boring in any sense of the word, and a really fun way to jazz up traditional cinnamon rolls.

If I had to change one thing, I’d just wish I had made more, but honestly, I’d turn into a coffee roll in a hurry. Two (in one day– oops!) were plenty for me!!

Go ahead and give your morning/weekend/whenever cinnamon rolls a coffee twist– if you’re even a smidge of a coffee lover, I know you won’t regret it.